(PDF) Negative Theology

Negative Theology Negative Theology William Franke1 and Chance Brandon Woods2 1 Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 2 Department of English, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA Description The basic idea of negative theology is that of God, we can know and say only what “he” is not. Since God is metaphysically anterior to the world of intelligible beings, no predicate deployed within human language is capable of circumscribing him within the limits of tion. In the discourses of negative theology, everything that is said about theos is said under erasure and as cancelling itself out, understood to be unnameable, unsayable, and indeed inconceivable. The philosophical motivations for negative theology derive first from classical antiquity (especially in Plato’s Parmenides) and subse- quently from the late antique developments of Neoplatonism in the writings of Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus (Carabine 1995). These Greek writers sought foremost to elucidate how the first cause of Being remains ultimately inscrutable to finite human intelli- gence, and they demonstrated the incomprehen- sibility of the One beyond Being through logical means. Developing alongside these philosophical trends were, first, the Jewish belief in an abso- lutely transcendent deity (YHWH), emblema- tized in Moses’ encounter with God atop Mt. Sinai (Exodus 3:13–16) in clouded darkness, and, second, in the early Christian conceptions of Christ (Logos) serving as the revelatory word/ icon of the hidden God (cf. John 6:46). Negative theology is a mode of human speech for signaling the elusiveness of God, where “God” can function differently in the various trajectories of ancient philosophy, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Negative theology has been engaged by a number of thinkers in several traditions, but after the ascendency of Jewish, Christian, and N 1444 a principle of difference, negation is a basic condition of sense. This condition is furthermore, to the extent that the whole of real- ity and even the ground or source of reality is implicated in it: “reality” and the idea of its being “whole” themselves emerge only with language and its negations. The real is under- standable only through distinction from the unreal and the whole only as not partial or fragmentary. The real as a whole, moreover, is a theological conception, to the extent that it cannot be found as an item anywhere within the ambit of the sum of realities but transcends this order. In this sense, “theos” is not a distinct thing or entity but rather the always conjecturable ground or source presupposed by everything else – the condition of there being any distinct things or any reality whatsoever. Language first confers the concep- tion of things as some kind of a grounded whole or universe, yet it can do so only by means of negation, since any item it can define and affirm cannot be the final ground. Negative theology is the self-critical thinking that brings this negative predicament of thought in to consciousness and exposes its groundedness (or negatively expressed, its groundlessness) in the abyss of endless negation of everything that is any finite, definable thing. Religion Negative theology is a mode of reasoning and speaking endemic to many faith traditions (variously manifested, e.g., in Judaism, Chris- tianity, and Islam), sharing also some philosoph- ical registers with strains of thought from non- Western belief systems such as Taoism, Vedanta, and Buddhism as well. The Greek term apophasis (“away from speaking,” “nega- tion”), upon which negative theology is based, has analogous terms in Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, and Chinese, though all are not purely identical in meaning. For this reason, negative theology is less of a religion per se and more of a form of theology that can subtend and suspend uncritical belief in any religion’s positive or primary discourse. Negative Theology an indefinable infinity of all that is not A. The “infinite” itself is transparently a negative conception. And likewise, any truly all-inclusive whole can be conceived of not positively (it could never encompass everything actual and possible) but only by negating all restrictions, exclusions, and limitations. Thus, negative theology points to certain limits of all disciplinary discourses, their inability to circumscribe their domains and give an ade- quate account of themselves. It points to some- thing undisciplinary – not capable of being reduced within the compass of any given disci- pline – and yet lying at the foundation of every discipline and every discourse (Franke 2007). Relevance to Science and Religion Theology, as the discourse of the unlimited, or as discourse without limits, turns out to be radically negative. However, this discourse is the revelation of a predicament that applies to the real quite generally. Negative theology, deeply considered, is not a specialized discourse or discipline to be ranged alongside others, each with a domain proper to itself and differentiated from others by criteria of exclusion. Negative theology invades discourse throughout its whole extent. There is always a factor of negation in discourse, since it is not what it says. And there are no limits to the capability of recursive self-negation of discourse: it reaches to infinity. This makes negative theology impossible to define. In fact, it does not exist, as Jacques Derrida lucidly maintained. There is no negative theology as such; there can only be a negative theology of negative theology: a discourse that cancels itself out by its very nature and necessity and that exists only in and as this act of self-annihilation or self-erasure. This is the case for negative theology in any of its ostensibly pos- itive articulations – whether in Neoplatonic, Gnos- tic, Scholastic, or otherwise mystic discourses. While negative theology functions to recog- nize the limits of discursive explanatory power, it should not be assumed that there is something radically antiscientific about it. Historically, N 1446 There are important distinctions to be drawn between the different strands of negative through history (Olivetti 2002). As it was under- stood by its ancient philosophical expositors, neg- ative theology was the deductive realization brought about through metaphysical speculation. For both Plato and Plotinus, since being is inextri- cably connected to intelligibility (i.e., to be is to be intelligible), then the “origin” of All (the One) can only be described in an analogous sense as the source of causality. Beyond this attenuated con- struction, the One must remain ineffable since it is impossible to allow the admixture of multiple predicates to our conception of the One’s radical unity (note that even “unity” fails in this case, as Plotinus suggests). Without jettisoning the philosophical justifi- cation of negative theology, Judaism and Chris- tianity had, in addition to these metaphysical insights, the warrant of inspired scripture that proclaimed the ineffable nature of God. In the Hebrew Bible, God has the unintelligible name of “I AM THAT I AM” (cf. Exodus 3), while the Christian New Testament bears witness to Paul’s mystical rapture to the third heaven where he encounters the ineffable presence of God, which he declares is forbidden to encapsulate in lan- guage (cf. 2 Corinthians 12). Revelation thus pro- vides a supplementary impetus toward negative theology. In the Middle Ages, both Judaism and Chris- tianity would engender unique forms of negative theological speculation. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (fl. 500 C.E.), long held to be St. Paul’s direct disciple (cf. Acts 17:34), articulated a Christian Neoplatonic form of negative theology in his works The Mystical Theology and The Divine Names. Mosheh ben Maimon (Maimonides) sys- tematized negative theology within Judaism in the twelfth century C.E. by arguing that no attribute could be predicated of God without conceptual idolatry. Respectively, Dionysius and Maimonides would become the most authoritative voices of negative theology within Christianity and Judaism. They would in turn receive much com- mentary in the centuries that followed the dissem- ination of their writings. Negative Theology negation of oneself or of one’s own discourse or affirmation may even be viewed as the inelucta- ble and necessary destiny of all reflective dis- courses aiming to expand consciousness without recognizing any intrinsic limits. The importance and potential of negative theology as an overarching paradigm in our post- modern times (Halbmayr & Hoff 2008) lies in its offering ways of reading all the traditional and dogmatic discourses of religions and other ideol- ogies less according to the letter of ble affirmations and more in open receptivity to the enabling insights by which they are inspired and animated but which cannot be adequately expressed as such in articulate speech governed by binary laws of making articulate sense. The positive, dogmatic expressions of religions appear as exclusive of one another and are liable to create division and strife, even deadly conflict. However, in stepping back via negation (the via negationis or via negativa) from their own posi- tive assertions, religious systems and visions are likely to find themselves inhabiting a common space that opens without restriction to infinity and divinity. Conceptualization As a theological process, negative theology eschews schematic definitions of discrete aspects of many things, especially as they are understood in relation to God. None the less, negative ogy engenders specific theological orientations toward the domains of human categorization. Nature/World Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, who is often considered the founder of Christian negative the- ology classically construed, coined the term hier- archy (hierarchia) in Greek to encapsulate his metaphysical understanding of reality (which he develops from the systems of the pagan writers Plotinus and Proclus). For Dionysius, hierarchy can be understood in ontological, celestial, and ecclesiastical terms. The levels within these hierarchies correspond to varying degrees of N 1448 than God, since in a monotheistic perspective only God is ultimately real: all other things are real only by virtue of participation in the one true Being of God. The reality named by all names, therefore, can be none other than God, and yet all names fail to attain the ultimate reality, which remains, finally, nameless. Knowledge In its Neoplatonic and Christian manifestations, negative theology understands knowledge to be apprehension of discrete things or concepts. Indeed, since ontology and intelligibility function interdependently (i.e., to be is to be intelligible as an object of thought), then knowledge is the purview of a finite intelligence or mind. According to this logic, negative theology works against any putative suggestion that God could be an object of knowledge beyond the attenuated concept of causality. Even assigning God some agency as the first cause tells us noth- ing about the essence of God, which eludes all modes of knowledge. By calling God “infinite,” the negative theologian is not predicating any characteristic of God, but rather working through negation to suggest that it is impossible to subsume God into the categories of finite Since God negates every discernable object of knowledge, then “knowledge of God” must be understood in non-intellective and nonpsychological terms. Throughout the Chris- tian tradition, this modality of knowledge has been approximated as ecstasy, mystical union (i.e. with God), and transcendence. Truth There are innumerable names for the unnameable – indeed all names in some sense qualify. The appar- ent ban (in negative theology) on all discursive approaches to true divinity paradoxically yields inexhaustible streams of discourse relating to the mystery of the divine. Negative theology is, in fact, bound up with the extraordinarily rich culture and history of aiming at fathoming or registering the divine transcendence of every possible kind of discourse. However, even the conception of divin- ity as “transcendent” – like every conception – is Negative Theology Conformably, negative theology itself never has any positive or fixed existence as such. It is divined always only in disappearing; it is grasped only to the extent that it escapes; it is present always only as absent. Consciousness Negative theologies in Eastern religions, particu- larly in Advaita Vedanta and in Mahayana Buddhism, in different ways turn on the realiza- tion of consciousness as an absolute reality – or on its extinction. In Western Christianity, there is a discernable tradition of thinkers who posit that human con- sciousness and God’s unknowability go hand in hand. These writers include figures such as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, John Scottus Eriugena (c. 800–c. 877), and Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–c. 1327). Thus, it is possible to articulate a form of apophatic anthropology (cf. Stang in Boesel & Keller 2010) that figures the mutual incomprehensibility of both God and person as fundamentally united in the ground of Rationality/Reason These discourses of negativity across the ages and across disciplines and cultures are theological in scope, since they concern reality without limits and in relation to its projected and conjecturable grounds or origin. Negative theology is not irra- tional nor does it necessitate a fideistic stance in theology. While Judeo-Christian forms of nega- tive theology often have as their goal the specula- tive protection and reverence for God’s absolute or mediated transcendence, the logic of negative the- ology was first articulated in the rational discourse of Neoplatonic philosophy. Rather than occupying an antirational space, negative theology reason’s deductive endpoint beyond which physical speculation cannot venture without compromising the ineffable threshold of God’s essence. Mystery The concept of mystery has much resonance with the enterprise of negative theology. Indeed, the founder of Christian negative theology, Pseudo- N 1450 ▶ Negative Theology ▶ Philosophy of Language ▶ Philosophy of Religion References Boesel, C., & Keller, C. (Eds.). (2010). Negative Theology, Incarnation, and New York: Fordham University Press. Carabine, D. (1995). The Unknown God: Negative Theology in the Platonic Tradition, Plato to Eriugena. Louvain: Peeters Press. Franke, W. (Ed.). (2007). On What Cannot Apophatic Discourses in Philosophy, Literature, and the Arts. Volume I: Classical Formu- lations. Volume II: Modern and Contemporary Trans- formations. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Halbmayr, A., & Hoff, G. M. (Eds.). Theologie heute? Zum aktuellen Stellenwert einer umstrittenen Tradition. Freiburg: Herder. Olivetti, M. (Ed.). (2002). Théologie D.A.M. Sells, M. (1994). Mystical Languages of Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Neglect Giuseppe Vallar and Nadia Bolognini Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy Related Terms Spatial hemi-inattention Description Unilateral spatial neglect is a neuropsychological syndrome caused by cerebral lesions which in humans typically involve the right cerebral hemi- sphere. Neglect has been described also in ani- mals (monkey, cat, rat) with, however, no hemispheric asymmetries. Patients with neglect fail to orient to events (visual, auditory, tactile stimuli) occurring on the side of space 1443 N Islamic culture in the Middle Ages, these three respective approaches have each engendered their own specific treatments of the ineffable God. It should be noted that if negative theology represents primarily the path of delineating what God is not, then differing identities of God (YHWH, Allah, the Trinity) receive correspond- ingly different manners of negation. Each tradi- tion has manifested its own systematic outline of negative theology through the medieval, modern, and postmodern eras. Thus, while the several traditions often share a desire to limit the reach of human discourse vis-à-vis God, they each have developed their own idiosyncratic patterns of negation that should not be conflated indiscriminately. significa- Self-Identification since God is Science To the extent that “science” denotes the process of fashioning a systematic study of all reality (biological, chemical, anatomical, cultural, etc.), it would be unfitting to describe negative theol- ogy as a science. Without calling into question N the philosophical legitimacy of creating a comprehensive conception of reality, negative theology has tended to emphasize above all else that “God” cannot be located within such a scientific schema and, perhaps more importantly, that God’s ontological nature is not equivalent to that of discrete beings. Therefore, since we can- not know what God is, it would be fundamentally misguided to assign God a place within the order of beings studied by the different sciences. None the less, the philosophical underpinnings of negative theology suggest that negation is intrin- sic to the very operations of human thought, even those that are systematized within organized methods of study. Negative theology is at work in the negating function and dynamic of language in its essential character and from its very origins. It is operative universally throughout the whole extent of language, which is never without nega- tion. Saying anything is always not saying some- thing else. Since language operates on Negative Theology Characteristics theological, The relative uniqueness of negative theology inheres in its overarching disposition toward epistemology and the apprehension of God and existence by human consciousness. The whole of reality cannot be grasped as such, certainly not by a finite mind, without itself becoming something finite and limited and in fact, for that very reason, not whole. A truly universal whole cannot exclude anything else beyond itself. Only a whole that is broken open to its own “beyond” can count as truly universal, truly All, but in this case, such a whole is not definable except nega- tively – as including also everything that it is not but rather opens toward everything that can be projected as being beyond it. Only in this relation to its beyond is the whole really whole, and thus it is whole only in and as its own self-negation. Accordingly, a whole and a ground of All without exceptions or exclusions can only be conceived of negatively. The whole in question is not one that can be grasped by any positive formula, since it is formed by negation. It is language infinite. It is whole not because it can be encompassed conclusively but because it is bro- ken open to the unlimited. It is an ungrasped, un- encompassable whole. It must embrace – in the mode of opening itself toward – even what it cannot encompass or embrace. This includes the real and the unreal together, since any delimita- tion of “reality” would leave something out and not be truly all nor all-inclusive. Thus, this All has to be conceived of as the not-All. A notion of the not-All is developed by thinkers like Slavoj Zizek and Eric Santner with reference especially to Lacan, who writes of the “pas tout” and Rosenzweig, who thinks the “nicht Alles,” respectively. Only as not-All does it remain truly open to all that it cannot encompass or say in its own or in any language. It is rather the function of infinite openness to all through self- negation that is made possible through language. And this is the fundamental resource and source- spring of negative theology. Indeed, like divinity, negation is infinite. Any notion negated – not A, for instance – opens to 1445 N philosophers interested in negative theology’s ability to inculcate a devotional awareness of language’s finite power have concomitantly pro- duced advancements in what is commonly called semiotics. In a sense, the underlying motivations of negative theology function as a science of signification. Thus, negative theology can func- tion at the interstices of “science and religion” if both domains are understood to be modes of affording coherence to reality via language. Negative theology, in treating aspects of divinity, simply maps out the limits of language’s coher- ence when used descriptively of God. In the process, it gains even more traction on language’s conventional usage in speech. Sources of Authority Historically, the discourses most manifestly charged with testimony of this mysterious, self- annulling movement of thought and language that is constitutive of negative theology include monotheism and Neoplatonism and a wide range of mysticisms from the vedantic to the baroque and romantic. There are immemorial N precedents in even more ancient mystery cults, in which silence was an essential step to initiation and illumination – for example, in the Eleusinian mysteries and among the disciples of Pythagoras, to cite just two classical instances. The broader anthropological background in primordial prac- tices of shamanism, too, would surely furnish abundant parallels, yet without the same degree of critical self-reflectiveness. Indeed, negative theology should best be considered to begin with rational reflection on divinity and with critical insight into the inescap- able aporiae of all forms of its representation. This is developed systematically by the Neopla- tonists through exegesis of precedents in Plato, especially in the Parmenides. And also the Jewish prophetic fulminations against idolatry open a similar vein of insight into the limits of all theological representations and become another foundation for negative theological reflection later in tradition. Negative Theology Ethical Principles theology First and foremost, negative theology is concerned with the ethical and moral orientation of the human mind toward God (conceived dif- ferently as the First Principle, the One, YHWH, the Trinity). From the perspective of Platonism and Neoplatonism, negative theology does not immediately engender an ethical awareness toward fellow human beings. Within Judaism and Christianity, however, the authorities of scriptural texts and doctrinal positions have coalesced to give negative theology a new valence of ethical awareness. It is commonly held within Judaism and Christianity that humans are creatures made in the image of God (cf. Genesis 1:27). When coupled with the insights of negative theology, interesting ethical stances emerge from this belief. For instance, negative theology posits that God’s essence is incomprehensible in its very nature. If humans are made in the image of an incomprehensible God, then it follows that humans are, to some extent, incomprehensible in their very natures as well. There is thus some- thing altogether indeterminate about both the nature of God and the nature of humanity. In the same way that negative theology seeks to decon- struct objectifying speech about God, it would follow that we should similarly call into question objectifying speech about human beings. Nega- tive theology necessitates a more nuanced con- ception of personhood in our understanding of deity as well as our understanding of human psychology. Taken to its logical conclusions, then, negative theology fosters a heightened sen- sitivity to the incommensurable nature of per- sons, thereby eschewing degrading or disparaging speech about human beings. positive risk of Key Values Negative theology is a way of thinking that is self-critical without limits. It can occur in all speculative discourses aiming at truth or meaning or sense. This sort of self-reflexive, self-critical 1447 N participation in the ineffable God, who, despite resting beyond being, is the ground of all beings. According to the Neoplatonic tradition (ranging from Plotinus through Pseudo-Dionysius to Thomas Aquinas), since effects resemble their causes, then the first cause (i.e., God) must be approached metaphysically through the circum- locutions of negative theology. Therefore, nega- tive theology enjoys a very specific conceptual relationship to causality within the natural world. their ostensi- Human Being As intimated above, given negative theology’s emphasis on the incomprehensibility of God, the Judeo-Christian belief that humans were made in the image of God suggests that human nature is similarly incomprehensible. When the concep- tion of human being is extended to include its bodily form, negative theology can be brought to bear on this as well. Ancient, patristic, and medi- eval understandings of negative theology pur- posefully eschewed dualistic frameworks of the mind-body relationship, positing on scriptural grounds that the body was essential for human nature (especially with regard to resurrection). Thus, negative theology, particularly in its more N modern developments, has worked against a materialist or positivist construction of the human as merely body, for this would constitute another manner of objectifying speech about the corporeal form of humanity (Boesel & Keller 2010). theol- Life and Death Death, like God, is treated as a name for the unnameable by numerous modern authors, Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot in partic- ular, who draw upon and extend negative theological reflection. Life, too, because of the inaccessibility to experience of its origin (we do not remember being born) is treated as a mys- tery in a negative theological mode by authors from St. Augustine to Jean-Louis Chrétien. Reality The reality intended by any name ultimately escapes verbalization and is, finally, none other Negative Theology not strictly permissible for negative theology, except heuristically and provisionally. All themes and conceptions and contents are eventually transcended by whatever it is that drives negative theology. and divine Perception In the Neoplatonic and Christian approaches to negative theology, Being is ineluctably tied to intelligibility. Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius routinely suggest that to be is to be intelligible. This means that human perception has a crucial function in marking the divide between the finite and the infinite. That which is intelligible is nec- essarily finite and therefore circumscribable within the ambit of human discourse. By contrast, the infinite (which, as the names signifies, is the total negation of finitude) escapes language. God is therefore legitimately called “infinite” only to the extent that such a description points toward God’s hyper-transcendent nature that eludes all intelligibility through perception. In a different cultural context, the Jewish prohibitions against idolatry work in a similar manner to emphasize that God’s authentic transcendence is not local- izable in discrete objects or perceptible forms. reality. Time What is left of negative theology, after this self-effacement, is its trace in history. Negative theology can only be glimpsed as a tradition, an archive, or a corpus of texts. As positive discourses, all these extant traces are no longer truly negative theology, yet we understand that they have been left in the wake of an impinging of the unthinkable upon thought and of the pressure of the unsayable against saying that has cancelled itself out as such by an intrinsic propulsion of its own constraining it to betray itself in some form of prolusion. This is why Levinas insists that the Dire is always betrayed by any Dit. We are thus able to read the negative theology in positively existing texts and discourses – to the extent that texts and discourses can positively exist, since in some sense they are always only projected by reading. Actually this ongoing activity of reading is never definitively localizable in place or time. 1449 N Dionysius, encapsulated his philosophy most succinctly in his treatise The Mystical Theology. Etymologically, “mystic” means “silent” and derives from the Greek root muein, which signifies the closing of the lips to pronounce the consonant m. Within the Christian context, the Latinate word “sacrament” corresponds to the Greek term mysterion, which signals that which cannot be addressed in language. Thus, sacramental theology can be understood as the schema of ritualistic participation in the ineffable Godhead. While “mystery” points toward the dis- position of reverent silence endemic to many faith traditions, it also gestures beyond the con- fines of specific doctrines through performative dramatizations of speechlessness. In this manner, while God remains ineffable, the human encoun- ter with the mystery of his incomprehensibility can be performed through language (Sells 1994). Mystery then can embody multifarious indices of negative theology. existence. Relevant Themes Negative theology is a form of critical thinking N and even in some ways, its extreme development to the phase of an acute crisis of self-critical thinking that negates the very possibility of dis- course, even its own. It began with Neoplatonic critique of all discourse concerning the One and continues through the anti-idolatry discourse of Critical Theory, especially in Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Negative theology can be seen as a self-critique of science that opens it to a religious dimension of the incalculable and ungraspable within its own bosom. represents meta- Cross-References ▶ Critical Theory ▶ Epistemology ▶ Interreligious Studies ▶ Metaphysics ▶ Mysticism ▶ Names of God Neglect contralateral to the side of the lesion (i.e., the left-hand side in right-brain-damaged patients) and to explore it. Unilateral neglect is currently interpreted in terms of deficits of higher-level processes supporting spatial cognition: impaired orientation of attention toward the contralateral side of space or defective conscious representa- Apophatic Bodies: tion of it, with attentional and representational Relationality. accounts being not mutually exclusive. Spatial neglect is not due to primary sensorimotor defi- cits (e.g., visual disorders, hemiplegia). It may involve both the contralateral side of extra- be Said: personal space (“extra/peri-personal” neglect), Religion, the contralateral side of the body (“personal”), as well as internally generated images (“imagi- nal”). One component of the syndrome is unawareness (anosognosia) of neurological defi- (2008). Negative cits contralateral to the side of the lesion (hemi- plegia, hemianesthesia, hemianopia). These négative. Milan: C.E. different manifestations of neglect are frequently associated but may manifest also in isolation, for Unsaying. instance, with patients showing extra-personal, but not personal, neglect and vice versa. These dissociations suggest that, although our phenom- enal experience of space is unitary, the underly- ing processes are multivarious and may be selectively affected by brain damage (Bisiach and Vallar 2000; Heilman and Valenstein 2011; Husain 2008). Self-Identification Science Unilateral spatial neglect has been first described in the medical literature published in the second half of the nineteenth century. Early brief clinical reports came from physicians specifically involved in investigating neurological and psy- chiatric diseases caused by brain damage: the Czech neuropsychiatrist Arnold Pick (1854– 1924) in Prague and the British neurologist John Huglings Jackson (1835–1911) in London. Sub- sequently, spatial neglect has been investigated in more and more detail, and it became increasingly clear that the deficit includes many components, which can present as selective deficits. This